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at usd400 and usd550, my money is on wind. time for eee to go

advantages of wind over eee
1. atom 1.6ghz cpu
2. dual slot ram, dual channel possibilities
3. proper 2.5in hdd cage = 500gb laptop hdd or SSD
4. high res screen
5. built-in bluetooth

disadvantages
1. heavier
2. already have eeePC , but blown away soon
2. so far none

wondering how much selling in malaysia...

white color very attractive... no dvd burner again?

asus eeePC usd399 = rm1299 (conversion rate 3.26x)

so estimate rm1299 to rm1800 (usd399 to usd550). i need to do preorder from my supplier now hehe

eeePC, wind, HP 2133, etc all are ultraportables. no optical drive

Based on my indepth analysis on this

advantages of wind over eee
1. atom 1.6ghz cpu
--> No significant improvements. Probably 10% extra battery life but performance should be similiar to 900mhz Celery of the Eee

2. dual slot ram, dual channel possibilities
--> Nope. I've seen/touched/molested the actual Wind. There's NO dual ram slot. There's an empty sodimm + the standard 1GB/512MB mounted on the motherboard itself.

3. proper 2.5in hdd cage = 500gb laptop hdd or SSD
--> Yes, but the HP Mini has g-sensor/shock proofing. The Mini doesn't.

4. high res screen
--> HP Mini has 1280x768 which is the same as regular 14" WXGA notebook. The Eee and Wind has 1024x600

5. built-in bluetooth

disadvantages

1. heavier
--> Slightly over 1kg if the HDD is replaced with SATA flash card.

2. already have eeePC , but blown away soon
--> I think it's different market lar. Eee is more portable. The Wind is interesting as a second notebook.

2. so far none --> Major disadvantage --> Rumour mills in old taipei says that MSI is screwed by Intel as Atom's shipping priority goes to Asus (yes... there's a Atom Eeepc coming), Dell and Acer.

u actually molested wind before? proto unit?

1. 1.6Ghz Atom perform the same as 900Mhz celery? tat's meant Atom same crap as Via proc...

2. gosh. does tat meant WinXP version has 512MB soldered ram and 512MB SoDimm?

even the 900mhz celery was faster than my p4 1.5ghz = 253 secs in wprime. benchies on the net shows the celery at 200 secs.

why i wont buy eeepc? cos its really a 2001 tech repackaged by cunning taiwanese into 2008 pricing. overpriced leh.

1. Yes.. engineering sample

2. I don't know what's the final specs yet but rest assured the cheapest model will use the onboard ram.



Intel is not a Taiwanese company. This is a Intel connect-the-next-billion thing.
Overpriced?? A cpu cost USD6 to make... how much they sell?
An Eeepc cost almost as much as they sell it.

strange why the mainland china still fail to clone intel cpus? like they did to cars, rockets etc etc?

nano scale fabrication is not something that everyone can emulate. ask AMD, they struggling to compete with intel due to fabrication technology.

wah... good news. more competition means better choice for consumers

Out of all, I'm more incline towards HP mini if I have unlimited funds. The features are great, the look is nice. Too bad it's expensive. Gonna wait and see how Asus gonna do with their Atom EEE before pulling the trigger.

In terms of value means what you get for what you paid, the HP Mini has the most value as it's pretty expensive to make. The protective hard glass for the LCD, the custom 8.9" LCD with 1280x768 resolution, the aluminum chassis (GAWDDD.. it's so sexy).

It is also more Starbucks friendly.

However, it's really let down by the VIA cpu and chipset. Performance of the 1.6Ghz C7M ULV is even worse than the Eeepc downlocked 600Mhz Celery and the power consumption is damn high summore.

16-18W idle was measured by another forum. This is almost as much as a regular Centrino notebook. In comparison, Eeepc 7" idles at 13W niah.

To be fair, this is mainly the VN896 chipset issue but either ways, this means crappy battery life. Even with the new Isaiah, I suspect that while performance will be significantly better, it will still be let down by the chipset in terms of graphic performance and battery life.

Besides that (plastic can never replace aluminum in terms of feel), I feel the Wind is the most balanced platform out there for the time being lor. .. well.. only less than a month left before Dell and Acer launches theirs (though I'll never get a Dell or an Acer)

I wonder if the atom can do H.264 video playback (DVD rips) properly or not? even my 3GHZ P4 (400Mhz bus) is 100% on this kind of video playback

720p is going to have skip frames. Other than that should be ok.

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Added on May 16, 2008, 7:40 amThe first kentut book review is out

http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%...TF8&sl=es&tl=en

the cpu performance in that review not yet optimized. but from the look of it, it's good

I have read that the VIA processor is among the slowest of the 3 procs currently being installed in 3 most anticipated cheap UMPCs. If so I wonder why HP even bothered with Vista given the slow processor

I agree that the HP mininote is pretty, but the system is rather imbalanced. a reviewer said that it gets too hot for you to work it on your lap, and the battery lasts very shortly - about 2 hours.

also, given the small screen, a higher resolution might or might not work well. I presonally like the sizes of my fonts on 1280*800 on a 15". and playing a 720p on the VIA chip might be too much for it to handle.

price update guys:

EEE 900 8.9" - $550
EEE 901 8.9" (atom) - 650
MSI Wind 10" (atom) - $550

I made some price research yesterday and concluded that given the specs on the wind, it owns EEE 900. also, what's up with $650 on the atom EEE? like i said a few months ago, Asus is ripping us off due to the lack of competition.

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Added on May 17, 2008, 1:43 pmsniper...

can you do me a hueg favor? id like to know what kind of power adapters does the msi wind use. is it something small like a nokia phone charger (there the transfermer is coupled with the male socket connectors) and like the eee charger, or is it like a normal laptop charger, with the power brick flaunting its ugliness when i carry them in my bag's side pocket?

also, how does ho mininote's power adapter look like?

More results are in from the rumour mill.. apparently HP may be making a platform change and it's not to Isaiah. It's gonna be pretty kickass *though not fanboy friendly*

Gonna maintain the element of mystery for a while first.

Regarding the Wind..it uses a regular brick...not the phone charger type. Eeepc also moved towards the regular brick already.

if it doesnt move on to isaiah, instead to another chip with a different socket they might even ned to change the chipset which could be problematic - since part of the reason they chose to use isaiah earlier was due to the pin to pin compatibility.

the elements of mystery from HP is just holding me back from deciding to buy the wind, regardless they will both only be available in June

finally, for $550, and after doing a price comparison between the wind and hp, i found the pros of each

Wind
a) Windows XP (as opposed to the 'free' suse linux on hp)
b) has bluetooth (as opposed to none on hp)
c) 6 cell battery (as opposed to 3 cell on hp)
d) it has an 1.6ghz atom (as opposed to the 1.2 ghz via oh hp) - i am not really sure if this is a pro for the wind though. pelase verify

HP
a) has a 120gb hdd (as opposed to 80gb on the wind)

HP has a smaller 8.9" screen but with a higer resolution. the wind, on the other hand has a 10" screen with lower but adequate resolution. i wish i only had to decide based on my preference of the screen size and res, but no, the HP mininote just had to be so underpowered at the same price wind.

I am puzzled with the high price of Atom EEE as well. There's not too many changes with the earlier EEE 900 right? And isn't supposedly its cost like below USD10 per chips (in large quantity of course).

Anyways, Atom has max TDP of around 3 watts correct? And the current celeron at idle consume at least 13W. So will there be huge improvement in term of battery life?

On Isaiah:

The chip they're using now is the old Esther and earlier speculation is that they may move to Isaiah. Anyway, I reckon the reason they went for a VIA solution is more of a time-to-market one as the Atom diamondville is a new uncertain thing.

The Atom won't be shipping in large numbers that HP requires for at least another couple months whereas in the VIA, it's a ready and matured product despite it being underperforming. We will only really be able to really purchase the Atom platforms on the last quarter of 2008 except those from Asus, Acer and Dell.


Wind
a) Windows XP (as opposed to the 'free' suse linux on hp)
b) has bluetooth (as opposed to none on hp)
c) 6 cell battery (as opposed to 3 cell on hp) --> 3cell and 6 cell options. I suspect the lower priced ones will be with the 3 cell
d) it has an 1.6ghz atom (as opposed to the 1.2 ghz via oh hp) - i am not really sure if this is a pro for the wind though. pelase verify

HP
a) has a 120gb hdd (as opposed to 80gb on the wind)
b) Aluminum chassis and the protective acrylic cover... in terms of cost, its A LOT more that HP pays for the chassis compared with the others

The Wind is the most balanced and moddable (think CF card+ CF to Sata converter for solid state storage) but the HP is definately the coolest.

Am guessing that the Mini will be refreshed in Q4 and when that mystery platform comes out... it's gonna rock the others in terms of performance.



Not really, Intel sudah naik harga due to the demand. Evil inside.

Regarding the TDP... must look at it as the sum of all parts...though quoting TDP is the best for marketing purpose...in reality, cpu is actually the least power hungry. The VIA on the mini gets killed by the chipset and likewise, the Wind gets killed by the harddisk (choice of which hdd also matters) and the 945chipset.

Right now, I'm posting this on a 965GM + T9300 12"notebook plugged into a watt-meter. Its drawing around 17W as I'm typing this with its fancy power management.

The Eeepc 7" with LED panel + flash based storage draws 13W measured from the same watt-meter. The HP Mini draws about 16-18W idle while I suspect the Wind will draw about the same as the Mini too.

Off topic:
I did some 2.5" HDD shopping yesterday.

Toshiba 250GB draws 5W max
WD 250GB draws 2.75W
Fujitsu 250GB draws 3W

So there ya go.. choice of parts also damn important.

hey! that wattmeter is so cool. i should get one for myself

i also read that the move to 9 and 10" screen would negate the advantage in using a lower TDP cpu.

sniper, i find it very... wierd (cant find a better word) as of why no reviewers bother to simply measure the power drawn by all mobile devices when the battery is unplugged? also, why cant they measure the mAH in each notebook's battery? we can calculate the duration a notebook can stay on battery power that way.

about the wind battery - $550 = 6 cell, $399 = 3 cell. just to clear it up. and.... i was comparing the 2 notebooks that cost the same ($550). hp doesnt even have one for that cheap a price . i still need to know how long the wind can stay on by using just the battery. i suspect for the same price ($550) the win would topple mininote due to the larger cell capacity

btw, when i look at the vid review of the wind, i saw a bulging part at the bottom of thw notebook. could that be the battery? if i use a 3 cell one do you think there wont be any bulging?

i cant deny the mininote looks nice. but heck, im cheap. i rarely look at aesthetics over performance. unless the price difference is way too small. that's why i focussed on comparing the price of the 2. hence wind is up against mininote 4 to 2 (if u include the nice alumnimum casing)

mininote is just too expensive, at least for me

but the alu casing and scratchproof screen justify the cost.

now i'm thinking of keeping my eeePC 701 since i cant make a decision

Bloody hell... just as I finished typing an epic Looooooooong post.. I ter-pressed the back button

Anyway... re-posting the summary version to reply mypetridish:



You should... for the inner-geek. It's fun measuring power draw of everything from the shaver to the PC. It's definately worth it when I can argue with the missus that leaving my PC on 24/7 uses much less power than her having the TV on for a couple hours a day



~3.8W difference between the 7" of the Eee and 10.2" of the Wind.

I believe the power consumption difference between the LCD is small and the cpu TDP influence is very small on system like this... marketing aside.

Trivia:
1.6Ghz Atom (diamonville) --> 2.5W
945 + ICH7 --> 7.4W
5.4K rpm HDD --> ~3W
1 biji SODIMM --> 1.2W



Because this will confuse the heck out of end users. Every brand (reputable or not..) quotes their battery life on differing "standards" and every small tiny configuration affects the numbers. How the reviewers gonna explain to both their readers and their sponsors lar. Sure die...hahhaha.



Time to do some informed speculation

The facts
- MSI quotes 3 hour and 7 hour of web surfing pleasure during Cebit when the Wind was first shown
- This was later revised to 2.5 hour and 6 hour
- 3 hour and 6 hour --> This means different cells are used for the 2 batteries
- High capacity cells are in major shortage.
- MSI like to copy Asus.
- 3 and 6 cells are offered. This means 3 cell single row an 6 cells 2 rows.

The speculation
- 3.6V 2400mah cells are used on the 3 cell
- 3.6V 2600mah cells are used on the 6 cell
- Hardware power draw should be around 15W based on what we've seen on the Mini, Eeepc and the 945GMS chipset which is a known entity. And it's got a HDD.

So..

Hardware power draw:

3cell : 10.8 x 2.4 = 26Whr --> 1.7hour
6cell : 10.8 x 5.2 = 56Whr --> 3.7hour

Batterymark benchmark figures (commonly factor in 1.5X)

1.7hour x 1.5 = 2.55hour
3.7 hour x 1.5 = 5.55 hour

If they really have to hit 2.5hour "REAL"... this means the hardware power consumption have to be in the 10.4W range.

I don't think this is possible lor.

10.2" LED LCD = 6.6W typical... probably down to 4.6W lowered to the max
1GB = 1.2W
HDD = 3W
Wifi = 2W

Not including cpu, chipset and motherboard power consumption also lari from the 2.5hour official figure di. So I think at best we can expect is ~2 hour of ACTUAL surfing pleasure niah. My definition of web browsing is by using BT. That way the WLAN power saving don't kick in but at the same time, the cpu loading is light as well. Under normal usage, there will be some lapse whereby everything rest.. hence the longer the battery, the more lapse/power saving features have to be factored in.



That's the 6 cell. 3 cell don't budge. I've seen the 3 cell.



Yeah... but the keypoint is all those "pros" for the Wind (except the cpu) vs the HP can be upgraded on a later date. Can always add BT on the HP, can always upgrade the HDD, can always jack sparrow Winxp . Aluminum chassis is priceless. Hahahhahaa...

For myself.. I fedup di... just got myself a 12" with a T9300 until the perfect product comes along (Lenovo X300's perfect for me but for that I need to sell my organs)

ps: Wow.. it turned up to be another pretty long post.

mininote......running on vista home basic is as slow as a turtle, slower than eee running XP. that's all i can say.
prefer the Wind's screen over HP's in terms of size and brightness.
love the wind's and HP's keyboard, love mininote's trackpad even better.

eee 901 is seriously outclassed, and Wind is definitely faster than mininote. waiting for eee 1000 to arrive. otherwise, i can't elaborate more

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Added on May 30, 2008, 12:01 amoh yeah, 6-cell pack on wind is like a mini laptop cooler. nice typing ergo.

Long time no see dood... u got sample di?

Early preview on Crave UK. The TurboDrive function for instant overclocking got my attention. Marketing strategy it is but still a plus-point in my books...

So, is it actually easy to break Wind?

http://www.trustedreviews.com/notebooks/re...ook-MSI-Wind/p1

nice machine

Who would actually be the official distributor of MSI products in M'sia?
If there were problems with the Wind, where would the place be to send for repair if it's under warranty?

I'm waiting for announcement of an UMPC featuring the top-end Intel Atom Z540 processor, which rumored to be better than Celeron 900MHz & A110 800MHz. However, many commented that Intel Atom platform's integrated graphics GMA500 performance isn't that satisfactory yet due to driver issue.

NT$ 18900 for MSI Wind U100 http://www.tkec.com.tw/dictitleurl.aspx?cid=2244

i just wish everything keep under usd450 max.... keep wishing...

approx Rm2k when arrive m'sia

its bit hard MSI NB market in m'sia, hope this Wind can really a strong winds to shake others

If only they have one in metallic silver or chrome green (with certain parts in black).

doesnt toshiba has something like this already? twinhead...60g hdd...etc..rm1699 or something...

but hey...it the price of this MSI is attractive enough...could be cool enough

wait for the OLPC lor. can get 2 for 450 budget..

Tired. Who's actually selling? Why Malaysia so lame one? Everyone keep quiet so that they could get their units first kah? Wakakaka.

its not lame, but not much ppl prefer MSI notebook in m'sia

I think nobody knows where to buy it..
Who knows where to get it?

probably true.. MSI? for me, not really a notebook brand.. of coz, perceived "viewpoints" can be changed or "bribed"..if the price is right..

Not much publicity for the product la. Try compare with Asus EEE when they first launch.

When will this notebook be available anyway? :|

sabar dulu let dell come out with their netbook version then only decide. it will around sept/oct.

Another 3 months? I don't think people will wait that long. IINM, Wind is supposed to come out sometime in June right (in the US anyway)

it's the same in SG.
a lot of ppl already pre-order it with the distro there.

MSI is a big no no brand for most of the malaysians.
but it's otherwise in SG, where the distro is doing goodjob for aftersales service.

The product is officially launched but not officially launched in M'sia only..

From lowyat itself..

well,

just wait so that can have more better option.
ahaha...so that later wont regret.

800 or 1600Mhz CPU?? the pink color is nice, for her

someone comment on that page that eeePC is slow at browsing. LOLX@him. eee is more responsive than my friend 1.6ghz C2D laptop due to eee's SSD